Saturday, 15 September 2018

So it's about 3-4 days since apple launched it's new phones that are iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. There is one more iPhone this year that is iPhone XR which is a cheaper version. In this article we are going to see that is there really any difference between iPhone X and new iPhone XS and XS Max. iPhone X was the first phone from the company which has end to end display with small bezels. Last year with the launch of iPhone X, Apple introduced an all new phone with new design, new camera, new chip and many other new features. It means there were a lot of changes in iPhone X from it's previous iPhones. But let's see whether this year apple has provided something new or not.

The initial impression of a smartphone comes from it's design. iPhone XS and XS Max comes with exactly same design as that of iPhone X, with same notch display and glass-stainless steel body. But iPhone XS has a screen size of 5.8" while iPhone XS Max comes with a massive screen size of 6.5". As iPhone XS comes with 5.8" display it looks identical to iPhone X. But there is only one thing which can differentiate it from iPhone X that is the new Gold color. Both the new iPhones come in three colors that are Space Grey, Silver and Gold. Yes Gold is the new color and it definitely looks better than other two colors. The display on both the phones are still OLED type with 19.5:9 aspect ratio. iPhone XS has display resolution of 1125*2436 pixels and that on iPhone XS Max is 1242*2688 pixels. Both the displays come with scratch resistant glass and oleophobic coating.

Also both the phones have notch at the top in front. The notch is also exactly same as iPhone X which houses an ear piece, front camera, IR camera, microphone, dot projector, ambient light sensor and proximity sesnor. These different sensors coordinate together to unlock the phone with face ID. Face ID is present on both of the iPhones and it will be faster than the previous generation. Both the iPhones now have IP68 rating. So we have arrived to a conclusion that there is no major difference in the design of new iPhones from iPhone X.

Now take a look at the major change in the phones that is the all new A12 Bionic chip. The new chip is manufactured on all new 7nm architecture which further increases the transistor density thus improving the performance of the device. This chipset is a hexacore chip with two powerful cores and four power efficient cores. This new 7nm architecture chip will increase the performance and improve the power efficiency.

Last year, Apple has a dual core neural engine in it's A11 chip. This year A12 Bionic chip has an octa core neural engine. This neural engine helps in machine learning and artificial intelligence of the phone. That means it assist in functions like face ID, Animoji, Augmented reality and many other things. As this year we have an octa core neural engine, all the AI functions of the phone will be much faster.

Now let's have a look at the camera of the phone. There is not much difference in the camera department in the hardware part. iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max both have same dual camera setup as that on iPhone X that is 12MP,f/1.8 + 12MP,f/2.4 where second lens is a telephoto lens. The only difference in the camera hardware is that now the primary lens has bigger pixel size of 1.4µm. The front camera is also same as 7MP,f/2.2 lens.

The back camera can record videos upto 2160p @60fps. It can also record 1080p slomo videos @240fps. It is a little bit disappointing that apple phones can only record slomo videos @240fps while other brands like Samsung and even Oneplus are giving 960fps and 480fps slomo video recording respectively. The front camera can record videos upto 1080p @60fps. The portrait mode is present on both front as well as back cameras. The telephoto lens helps in 2x optical zoom in the camera.

Though iPhone XS and XS max's camera don't have a lot of difference in the hardware part, there are differences in the software part. With the A12 chip there is all new ISP for cameras. It helps in producing better photographs by processing them properly. There is an all new HDR mode just like on pixel phones. So the image quality is going to increase with this phone. Also there is a mode in the phone where you can change the depth of feel in the shot even after capturing it. It helps in choosing us how much amount of blur we require in the background. All previous features like lightening photos are still present on the device.

iPhone XS and XS Max both comes with iOS 12 installed. We all know about the software experience of the apple which is really amazing. Apple pays a lot of attention in the software part. It does optimization between the software and the hardware so well that every iPhone of the year becomes the most fluid phone. Now the Sri has become more advanced. The gesture functionality is still there on both the iPhones. Both iPhones come in three memory specification 64/256/512 GB internal with 4GB of RAM. There is no slot for micro SD. Now new iPhones support e-SIM and there is one slot for physical SIM as well. So now technically they are dual SIM devices.

iPhone XS starts at $999 and iPhone XS Max at $1099 for 64GB version. Now the main question arises, should you upgrade? If you own an iPhone X and planning to buy iPhone XS or XS Max, stop there because you can see that only there is one major difference that is A12 Bionic chip. There is no other major change in the devices. But if you own a iPhone 8/7/6, you can definitely upgrade to these new devices because you will see a lot of differences.